I bought the PC port of The Last of Us Part 2 when it was released for a few reasons. I heard from friends and family that it was a masterpiece and also that I shouldn’t play it. That made me want to play it more. Personal grip, but I hate the way the PS5 controller feels so I wanted to wait until it eventually came out on PC. Now is also the best time because the second season of the HBO show is releasing and it is based on this game in particular. Now I have the knowledge necessary to be unbearable when I watch it with my family. I wanted to finish the game in a week, and I did. I was hooked, I had to know what happened next, who would die and what lengths Naughty Dog would be willing to go to.
At one point when talking to a friend, I described this game as an urban exploration simulator. Most of what you are doing is running around abandoned buildings, collecting supplies and taking out the infected. In fact I feel as though there are a lot more gameplay sections in Part II then there were in Part I. Disclaimer, I was not a fan of the first Last of Us. It felt more like a movie than a game and while there are long ass cutscenes in Part II I felt its cutscene to gameplay ratio was more balanced.
Gameplay feels fluid, learning new mechanics is paced out perfectly. I loved that I sorta had to physically write down the codes for doors and safes. It made me feel more immersed. Of course you could just check the notes you pick up and then remember them if you don’t want to write it down. Upgrading was straightforward, you can upgrade your equipment at benches and you can upgrade yourself with random pills you find in people’s homes (which is hilarious). Unlocking more skill trees and weapon slots mostly requires you to explore your surroundings and solve traversal puzzles. Exploring rewards the players, on top of finding upgrades the environments are incredible. They made so many unique assists for each house and business it was impressive. The 40 hours I spent playing this was mostly wandering around looking at stuff and reading posters.
It would be hard to talk about the plot of the game without spoiling it but if you’re like me and you were not a fan of the first Last of Us, I would recommend taking a look at this one. It’s different. It’s raw, and I love a good revenge story. I do think the story has some pacing issues. The start of the game with Ellie in Seattle is a little slow, but it picks up. The end of the game was strange. It felt like a dlc that tried to wrap up the story really fast, but the finale was so worth it.
I had some graphical issues with the PC port and it crashed a lot, but me and my GPU managed to get through. Besides crashing, minor graphic issues and frame rate drops, the game has a lot of great features for PC. You can link your Playstation account and get double achievements (Steam and Playstation). It has Dualsense support so you can plug in a PS5 controller and get that haptic feedback. As addressed above I don’t like that controller so I played mouse and keyboard but it’s nice that I had the option. Honestly I thought about moving to controller because dodging in this game is rough on the keyboard and there are a few “bosses” that dodging is required. They do have mapping as an option that I could have used but I’m stubborn.
Not exclusive to PC but the remastered version has No Return, a roguelike survival mode. In this you play as multiple characters and do combat challenges around different areas of the map. The more runs you do the more characters you unlock and items you can purchase for your next run. Be aware that switching your character will reset your run
There are a lot of behind the scenes included in this edition. We have a whole two hour movie about the making of as well as episodes of The Official The Last of Us Podcast. My personal favorite was the playable lost levels. You can play early-development levels that got cut with developer commentary.
Overall, I expected not to like this game but I had to see for myself. It ended up being a thrilling experience getting to play out not one but two revenge fantasies. What message you get out of The Last of Us Part II will differ. I think we all have been consumed by grief or the thought of revenge against those who have wronged us. It’s not a difficult read but it’s a personal journey.
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